This invention relates to systems used for signature verification and more particularly to improvements therein. In an application, Ser. No. 681,118, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,040,012, entitled Handwriting Verification System, by Crane et al., and assigned to a common assignee, there is described a system for comparing signature-derived signals. Included in the correlation process is a method and means for achieving a certain degree of rubberiness between signals derived from specimen and template signatures. The rubberiness is achieved by breaking the signals into fixed portions, or segments, such as halves or thirds, and then performing a stretching and contracting operation between corresponding halves or thirds. The signals are not examined for any particular features; the process of segmentation is blind, in other words it is performed independent of the nature of the signals. Where there are no explicit landmarks in the signal, this process is very useful. However, if the signature generated signals have prominent landmarks, and if advantage can be taken of the presence of those landmarks, the operation of stretching or contracting the portion of specimen signals between each pair of landmarks for subsequent correlation can be made much simpler and more economical.